Bennett Travel Blog: 2011 JAPANESE ALPS

Late January, Jetstar delivered Mike Wilson and myself to Narita airport with a 3 hour stopover at the sunny Gold Coast in Queensland. All told it took about 10 hours flying time to Tokyo from Sydney.

From the airport, the KeiSei Skyliner made short work out of delivering us to downtown Ueno where we had booked the Hostel Komatsu -a basic friendly budget accommodation located right at JR Ueno station.

Local FunHouse

Food Options

Ueno is an excellent base to work from in Tokyo as it has lots of bargain and camping stores selling basic equipment. There is also no shortage of reasonable restaurants in Ueno. It is a major transport hub for the metros, JR Yaminote Loop, Shinkansen and also sleeper trains to Sapporo. The Shinkansen from Ueno takes about 90 minutes to get to Nagano in the heart of the Japanese Alps. Nagano township has buses and rail connections to all the alpine resorts and is a pleasant city.

A bewildering array of food on offer!

Our first destination was Hakuba, the second choice (after Niseko) for Australian skiers.

Resort House "Windy"

The Parlour!

Hakuba has about seven separate ski areas. We skied Happo One for two days. A really good ski hill. The weekend brought in Tokyo crowds featuring hordes of Teenage Tyro Snowboarders -unfortunately substantially reducing our enjoyment . But... No Fractures this trip! We noticed that they seem to be very sociable when gathering at the top and bottom of most runs.

Monday did finally roll around and a short shuttlebus ride brought us to nearby Hakuba 47 and Hakuba Goryu. Both have excellent skiing of course. The weekend tourists had returned from whence they came and the resort was ours! After 4 nights in the very pleasant "Resort House Windy" (with attached Yakinuku barbecue restaurant) we transferred to Nagano and on to Myoko Kogen using Japan Rail.

Myoko Kogen was doing it tough due to excessive snowfalls cutting JR rail access. -We kept our spirits up with several memorable meals in the town, actually being treated like royalty for the most part by friendly restaurant staff. Can also recommend the local Sake! Staying at the very comfortable and TV equipped "Hotel Kofukan" we finally met up with Millar, the third member of our "Core Group". We had finally achieved critical mass.

View of the Volcano from our Hotel Room

The View on one of the Slopes

Our first resort was Suginohara, a resort on the side of a volcano which had an 8.5 kilometre moderately graded downhill run, groomed of course to perfection. It turned out to be a bit lonely on these slopes even though the skiing was unimaginably good by any standards. We found it quite difficult to leave this pleasant resort but we needed to try Akakura Kanko which was the original resort around these parts. Naturally the skiing there was excellent too. Still another three or four nearby undiscovered resorts as well as these two but they will have to wait till another time!

or is it a "Blockage" of Snowboarders ?

Rail back to Nagano, time for an exquisite lunch and then the bus up to Nozawa Onsen . Having been in Nozawa before, we were able to relax thoroughly and to retrace old paths to our favourite eating and drinking houses. Nozawa has changed a lot in the last 12 months and is becoming somewhat "Australianised" to a great extent. Jury is out as to whether this is a "Good Thing" or something to be feared. Fortunately the locals still seem to like us !!

At Nozawa Onsen, Our accommodation was the excellent "Pension Schi Heil" with great rooms and a great breakfast. All this and coupled with a fantastic location too! Skiing is predictably excellent at Nozawa and the antique town itself has a variety of recommendable restaurants and sights. It's always a pleasure to be here. The celebrated onsens are a big hit but the water seems quite hot, probably around 42 degrees!!. Again this town is surrounded by other nearby ski resorts but no-one seems to get to them or know much about them